I have friends who moved from east tx back to OK city area.. I went for a vist and while there they asked me to design their landscaping for them.. they have loved everything I have done to my placehere in East TX so they know what kinds of things I do.. I have a totally clear slate/yard to start with.. Nothing to rip out or tear out and I have a reasonable budget to work with..I dont do the labor either..lol.. she has a GS who owns a lawn service company that will do the heavy work.. I just have to say that goes there and it gets done...lol.. I know that there are some differences due to the zones and such that I have to research but can any one give me some tips of things that might not be mentioned in books.. things you know will work or to do.. she has requested a few things she wants but they are suited for the OK city area..I plan on going back this fall to get the hard scape and beds started then next spring return for the instulation of the plants.. so any suggestion???
landscaping in OK city
blkraven, all I can say is OKCity has red soil.....very red soil....
cant be any worse than what s around east tx...lol.... I was planning on admending it really well like I did with mine here.. I did a litlte bit of digging and found its hard as a rock..They moved to an older subdivision and supriseingly noone ever did any landscaping to the house ...no foundation plantings, no trees, na da so it really is a blank slate for me..
I travel to OKC and tulsa for work every once in a while. I know I have bought daylilies and things at kmart.....one time I had the company van and in the evenings I would hit all the discount places and I had my room full of plants because it was too hot to leave them in the company van, then when I got ready to come home the van was packed.....bad thing was I couldn't stop cause it was sooo hot it would of fried the plants....what we do for plants! One of the women who works in Tulsa, grows the tall grasses, I sent her some zebra grass and those roses everyone is growing, iris, sort of the same stuff I grow up here.
I can tell you this year, OKC had terrible snows and cold, where usually they just have freezing rain, sort of like Dallas.
Surely someone out there is from OKC....LOL
this is going to be as low maintaince as possble for them they are both in their 70s with heath issues but they love plants and flowers... I plan on using lots of native type things along with some of the cottage garden stand bys and set up a sprinkler system so its as easy for them to maintain..
I keep thinking someone from OK city would have responded but not yet!!
I just found this group but I hope it's not too late to reply. I live just north of OKC. It sounds like you have a dream job - all the fun without the hard labor! We HAVE had some wild weather this year but so many plants do well here. Raised beds are a great way to easily amend the soil and provide proper drainage. The plants I've had the most luck with are my echinacea that are in a raised bed and Russian sage. Also, although getting to be a bit overused, the Knock Out roses do really well - in both high humidity and dry heat. I love to see them paired with native grasses. Somehow the contrasts in texture appeals to me. Cosmos seem to thrive in our heat. I have yellow and orange ones that remind me a bit of poppies dancing in the wind. I love native plants, too. OKC is right in the middle of the transition zone from the Crosstimbers area and the mixed grass prairie. The east side of Oklahoma county has more trees and the west side is definitly flatter grasslands, so you have a wide variety to chose from. You had mentioned they are in their 70s but depending on how interested and able they are, you might want to think about including some edible landscaping. The Urban Harvest at the Regional Food Bank here in town has display gardens that are full of ideas. English peas make a pretty vine in the spring plus you get the bonus of eating fresh sweet peas. Rosemary can make a pretty little shrub. I have some oregano that is making an attractive ground cover. What a great opportunity to start from scratch! Have fun and please let me know if I can do anything to help!
kjplant, you must be the one person in Oklahoma....rofl.
Thank you for replying.. I went to a local nursery while I was there and checked out stuff.. Ill be going back in the fall when its cooler to begin the work.. I love using natives and she loves roses so both will be incorporated into the yard.. its going to be a lot of fun
I'm not sure where all the Okies are... out picking okra and squash?
Been hot down there? We went thru a really hot month of June, then the last few days of June and what there has been of July has been really cool. Ground was hard as a rock until the rains this weekend. Hopefully I can start planting again.
When I go down I see the red dirt, is that clay? My dirt is black but it is really full of clay, which is why it was so hard until it rained again.
The red you see Happ is definitely clay.
Yep, beautiful, red, slimy (when wet) clay. I've often thought of taking up pottery making. I'd just have to walk out into my yard to get my supplies! I was raised in northeast Oklahoma where the soil is brown so it took some getting used to. But now I love the rich color it adds to the landscape.
blkraven,
I live in OKC. I hope it's not too late to help.
You don't say where in OKC your friend lives. North OKC & Edmond are slightly hillier and have lots more trees than the rest of the city. Nine mile flats in south OKC & Moore has a slightly different micro climate than the surrounding area.
Is your friend's land up on a hill? Does it slope? Is it in a low place? These small differences affect the amount of wind and frost that her piece of land will experience.
Be aware that Lowes & Home Depot & Walmart advertise that they sell plants specially chosen for the OKC climate -- but are often WRONG --- especially about the amount of sun a plant will take and which plants they claim are perennials but won't survive a lengthy hard freeze. Most plants that are designated for full sun all day really do much better with some afternoon shade.
Read the labels carefully to be sure the plant they claim is a 'perennial' will survive temps in the single digits and probably below zero because we often have a few subzero days each winter, and sometimes have a week or more of continuous below zero temps. That said, our winters in OKC have gotten much milder than when I was a kid. Generally, we don't have as much snow or cold as in the past, but it can still get very cold.
Regarding soil -- if your friend lives in an area built within the past 20 years, it's likely all the topsoil was removed and sold before the building began. But it's unlikely that you will actually have to deal with hard red clay. If you do, lots of tilling and compost and some lime are the answer. Several companies sell a gardening dirt mixture that I originally used to fill my raised garden beds.
Roses here need to be watched for black spot and powdery mildew. I've always chosen the varieties that are supposed to be resistant, but still have to do some spraying each year.
My sister has lots of hostas in her shaded yard. I have 'wild' vinca as a ground cover in my yard which seems to thrive and bloom in both the shade and sun.
The following are some suggestions for perennials that don't require much care but provide lots of color --
Peonies do well here and don't require all that much mulch to overwinter. In fact, I've one that's over 20 years old that's rarely mulched. Some elephant ears will actually come back up, others just disappear if left in the ground all winter. I guess it depends on where they are planted and how much rain and cold happens any given winter.
Creeping phlox does quite well here but, of course, only blooms for a short while each spring.
Forsythia and spirea are absolutely beautiful each spring.
Crepe myrtle is a great and long-blooming plant that blooms all summer! They are typically small trees, but some miniature and shorter bush varieties are now for sale and colors range from white, to purple, to light pink and dark pink. Look for varieties that are resistant to powdery mildew which can be a problem.
Rose of Sharon is also a good, long-blooming, small-tree size plant with several colors to choose from and rarely requires any care or pruning.
Hydrangeas do well here if positioned properly. I've seen them bloom well into summer on the north side of a house.
I don't know much about them, but there are some beautiful holly bushes and trees that have wonderful red berries each year.
There are some lovely blue spruce that thrive in OKC. Some are trees others are small bushes and others are spreading ground covers. Of course, these are also available in other than blue spruce which happens to be a favorite of mine.
Magnolias do well here but do create some cleanup work. Tulip magnolias are beautiful when blooming.
Azaleas do quite well here but bloom only in spring.
Japanese red maples can thrive if situated correctly.
Hardy hibiscus do well here and require little care.
There are some daisies that reseed each year and require almost no care.
Cannas do wonderfully and, contrary to popular belief, don't have to be dug up each winter. They also attract humming birds.
Mums make great fall color.
As for annuals -- what do you want to know? Do you have mostly shade? Sun? Do you want lots of color? Tropical hibiscus do great all summer but won't survive the winter outside a greenhouse. Bougainvillea is also stunning, but needs a winter greenhouse.
Okla State Univ has a superb Ag division. Here's a link for lots of great info on Oklahoma gardening.
http://www.oces.okstate.edu/gardening-insects-pest-management
Here's a link for plants that are chosen for Oklahoma and have been "Oklahoma Proven" by OSU. However, Oklahoma has incredibly diverse landscape and climate which change drastically from east to west and north to south so be aware that the plants that thrive in eastern and north eastern Okla won't do well in OKC or western Okla.
http://www.oklahomaproven.org/
I hope some of this helps. Once you're through with your friend, will you design my yard? I know lots, but have not a creative bone in my body and need someone to organize and design a plan for me. Right now, I just plop stuff in pots and stick em out in the yard. ;o)
Sam
This message was edited Nov 18, 2010 1:00 AM
To pepper23 and others --
Not all red dirt in Oklahoma is clay. We have red dirt and red clay and red sandstone and pink quartz.
The red in each of these different materials is caused by the presence of iron or iron oxide.
Oklahoma also has black dirt, black clay, wetland marshes, quartz, sand dunes, and salt plains. The soil in ancient flood plains is usually black and fertile.
It's the red that most people remember, but not all the red is clay.
I agree with smackinsam's plant suggestions. I live in Seminole which is about 45 miles southeast of OKC and I have alot of those plant and shrub choices. I have also lived even further southeast and still was fine with the plant choices even though the ground was very sandy.
I also have lots of luck with clematis. I have one even now blooming. Hostas are pretty awesome around here as well as cannas. I have had cannas seven feet tall before and I never have to dig them. However I have never had a caladium come back when I have left it in the ground.
Bradford Pear trees are very popular around here for the shape and the blooms but the wood is softer than you might think and tend to lose branches if we get an ice storm and we usually do get them. That hasn't stopped me from planting them I am just careful where I put them.
I plant all kinds of annuals and a lot of them reseed. Also Dianthus is great around here sometimes staying green all year if we have a mild winter. Last year we had a blizzard on Christmas Eve and ice several times in my area and my Dianthus lived and bloomed to tell about it. LOL
It has already been mentioned but it bears repeating. When the plant instructions say full sun it never means full sun in central and southern Oklahoma.
smackinsam, thank you for explaining about the soil, that is so interesting. We are just the opposite, we have black soil and we have horrible black clay that I really think with just a little work you could build a house out of, sadly the really wet spring might cause some problems...LOL We went to an auction one time in a field right after it had rained and the clay was soooo bad peoples boots were being pulled off their feet, it was kind of funny.
I am usually in OKCity or Tulsa on buisness so my prospective of the soil is very limited that is why I was curious. One of the woman who use to work for the company had some beautiful roses so I figured there must be more to it than I saw.
Missouri is like Oklahoma in a way but probably a bit more severe. The growing problems we have here are the winters are equal to MN. and the summers are equal to GA. So we have the extremely cold (minus temps are not unusual at all) and the heat and humidity (lots of times this summer we had heat indexes of 113). Got to love it...rofl.
Looks like we have about the same growing list as you posted with the exception of magnolias most years here the mags will get the blooms all frosted, cannas in some areas will come back (not mine sadly), peonies always do beautiful unless the rain beats them to death which does happen. My Ggrandparents are buried in a very old cemetery, no one goes there anymore but me. My Mom has pictures of a peony bush in bloom that must be a minimum of 60 years old. No one cares for it, it just grows among the weeds, blooms and comes back.
Happgarden,
One of my sisters lives in KC, MO and she recently asked me what I would recommend that she plant beside the above-ground equipment that runs the filters, etc. for her new swimming pool. She wants to make the back side of it look nice because that's what her neighbors are stuck looking at from their kitchen window. She's thinking about something that vines and blooms but I wasn't sure what to tell her because the MO winters can be so harsh.
I suggested Carolina Jasmine or the continuous blooming pink & yellow honeysuckle that's slow growing and not invasive. She asked about Clematis, but I don't know of any that have a really long bloom time or whether Clematis will survive the winters there. Do you? Do you have any other suggestions for what she can plant to screen the ugly equipment?
You say your cannas don't come back. Have you tried to mulch them really deeply? Like 4 to 6 inches or more of leaves, or hay, or grass clippings, and compost on top? You can keep the leaves & compost in place and prevent them blowing away by putting a short hardware cloth or chicken wire fence attached to wood or iron stakes around the perimeter. Or you can just lay the chicken wire on top and secure it with some garden stakes. Or, have you tried to dig the cannas and keep them in a dark, cool, but not freezing place for the winter? If you dig them, use a digging fork in order to keep from cutting them in half with a shovel.
I once saw a gardening program that actually dug up roses and other plants, then dug a trench deep enough so the entire rose plant would be below ground when placed horizontally. They then laid the roses in on their sides and covered them with dirt for the winter. Now THAT is dedication to roses!
You mention that a house could be built out of the black MO clay and how miserable it was to have it suck your shoes off --humorous but miserable ! Think of our ancestors trying to plow it and grow crops! And live without A/C in the summer while wearing corsets & petticoats under the bombazine dresses buttoned from neck to ankle! And live in winter with biting cold without insulated walls & windows, no furnaces, much less central heat & air, no running water and no inside toilet. Only fireplaces, cookstoves, and pot bellied stoves to keep warm. But that didn't help the livestock. I used to have to go chop ice in the stock tanks and around the edge of the ponds so the horses could drink !
Where is the old cemetery where your grandparents are buried? Hopefully someone has written down who is buried there before the headstones all deteriorate.
Enjoyed visiting with you -- gotta go !
Clematis will do well in KC MO. However they don't bloom long (depends on the kind) and some kinds have to be cut back after flowering.
Porcelain Ivy is beautiful as a screen, but it can be invasive so has to be kept mowed around to keep in check. Also the berries it produces may be poisonous.
I would avoid honey suckle, as bees are attracted to the sweet nectar in the blooms, and that wouldn't be good around a pool.
Has she thought of building some screens around the pool using lattice? Could set a lattice box over the whole pump area, lift it up when it needs maintenance.
She may also consider peonys. They get around 3 feet tall, and even after blooming the foliage can look nice most of the summer. If you need to work around the area, you can trim them back, they will grow back the next year.
She might also consider an ornamental grass. They would screen out nicely, add winter interest, and are very hardy. They do however need to be divided after several years, and that can be a tough job.